Extreme Frontier Army: Starting from the bottom ranks, conquering the chaotic world

Apart from him and the commander, even Zhao He only knew the basics of these transactions.

The most crucial secret accounts of the Ministry of Revenue disappeared without a trace when the Minister of Revenue died!

How did it end up in the hands of a rogue soldier from a sergeant's battalion?

The hand holding the white cloth trembled slightly.

He knocked over the Ru kiln teacup, spilling scalding hot tea onto the table.

It dripped down the edge of the table, splashing onto his clothes.

The expressions of the generals nearby changed, and they were about to step forward.

Gu Changfeng raised his hand and stopped them.

He slowly lowered his head and glanced at his fingers, which were red from being scalded by the tea.

Burning pain.

But the expression on his face calmed down.

His eyes were cold and sinister.

"Mr. Gu..."

A general spoke cautiously.

"Pass on the order."

Gu Changfeng slowly tightened his grip on the white cloth.

"Cease the attack on the camp immediately. Ballistae and tiger-squat cannons, stand by. Archers are not to fire a single arrow without authorization. Heavy infantry, maintain the encirclement. Without my order, no one may approach the Eighth Battalion within thirty paces."

The generals were completely dumbfounded.

They were just saying they were going to ambush and kill us, why did they suddenly stop?

Gu Changfeng's gaze swept over the crowd: "Anyone who dares to make a move will have their entire family executed."

As soon as those words were uttered, the temperature inside the tent plummeted to freezing.

The generals dared not ask any more questions and scrambled out of the tent to relay the order.

Gu Changfeng sat back down in the armchair, spread the coarse cloth on his lap, and read it again, word by word.

The more I looked, the deeper the coldness in his eyes became.

Lu Jing!

That damned madman actually has something in his hands that could completely capsize the Northern Xuan Army.

A direct assault is absolutely not going to work.

If that madman really destroys the ledgers, or leaves a backup plan to spread them, even nine heads wouldn't be enough to chop off Gu Changfeng's head.

The ledgers may not be complete.

Lu Jing may not really understand either.

What we need to do now is to keep him calm and trick him into giving us the goods.

Find out who's behind him, and then dismember this madman piece by piece.

The only option is appeasement.

At least for tonight, we can only appease them.

Gu Changfeng looked at the most important lines, dismissed those around him, and fell into deep thought.

"Yanmen Black Market"

Three million taels

The Xie Clan of Youzhou

After a long while, it was late at night.

"Sir," came the head of the personal guard's hushed voice from outside the tent, "the Eighth Battalion has been quiet all night."

Gu Changfeng slowly raised his hand and picked up the cup of cold tea in front of him.

"He knows that defending is better than running away." He seemed to be talking to himself. "That tattered page in his hand... isn't enough, he's waiting too."

The head of the guards paused for a moment, then asked, "What are you waiting for?"

"Wait for me to send someone." Gu Changfeng walked to the tent entrance, looking at the silhouette of the Eighth Battalion faintly visible in the wind and snow outside. "He sets his conditions, I send someone to pick him up. He asks for an exorbitant price, I negotiate a lower one. This is the scheme he wants."

He lowered the curtain and turned around.

"Send Xu Youcai tomorrow."

The head of the guards hesitated: "Sir, Registrar Xu is a civil official... that guy surnamed Lu won't buy into that."

"It's precisely because he only responds to force that we sent someone with a softer approach," Gu Changfeng said sarcastically. "The more he feels he's won, the more relaxed he'll become. Only when he's relaxed can we find out where he hid that torn page."

He paused, then said coldly, "As for Xu Youcai... give that kid whatever he wants. If he wants a knife, give him a knife. If he wants face, give him face. As long as he doesn't have a second copy of that piece of paper, he'll eventually slip up."

Gu Changfeng sat back down in the armchair covered with sable fur and closed his eyes.

Outside the curtain, the wind and snow continued.

......

Eighth Battalion's drill ground.

The sky was already beginning to lighten with the first hint of dawn.

The cold wind was still biting, but the imagined barrage of arrows did not materialize.

The heavy clatter of wooden wheels outside stopped.

The ballistae and tiger-squatting cannons are still there.

Three thousand heavily armored soldiers still surrounded the camp like a black tide, but the archers in the front row all lowered their arrows, yet their killing intent did not dissipate.

"They've stopped! They've stopped!"

The blind old soldier, peering through the gap in the fence, suddenly let out a wild roar of joy.

"The ballistae didn't fire! The heavy infantry didn't charge! That bastard Gu Changfeng chickened out!"

The entire Eighth Battalion was in an uproar.

Hundreds of soldiers crawled out of the mud and water, staring in disbelief at the stagnant army formation outside.

At least for this moment, they were surrounded by several thousand heavily armored infantry.

Some people collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads, laughing and crying at the same time.

Someone punched into the muddy water, his fingers bleeding profusely, but he seemed not to feel any pain.

Skinny Monkey wiped the mud off his face, stared blankly at the outside of the camp for a moment, then suddenly jumped up and kicked the broken wooden bucket next to him.

"Hahaha! Even old dog Gu has his tail between his legs sometimes!"

As I laughed, tears welled up in my eyes again.

"Damn, that scared the hell out of me! My pants were almost wet just now."

The blind old soldier stood silently by the fence, gripping the wooden spear, his chest heaving violently.

A moment later, he turned around and looked at the man carrying a saber at the entrance of the tent.

For the first time, his eyes held not just awe, but also a hint of unspoken admiration.

All eyes immediately turned to Lu Jing.

It was like looking at a living Yama, the King of Hell.

Inside the tent, Shen Qingqiu leaned against a wooden pillar and slumped to the ground, completely exhausted.

He was panting heavily, watching Lu Jing's retreating figure.

This madman actually managed to stop Gu Changfeng's army with just a piece of paper.

Ji Ruxue sat in the corner, her expression shifting between anger and uncertainty.

She originally thought Lu Jing was just a reckless, foul-mouthed soldier who ran rampant in the soldiers' camp with his ruthlessness.

But that arrow and that piece of white cloth felt like a slap in the face, striking her judgment squarely.

This person treated everyone's game as a bad hand on the table, casually dismantling and reshuffling it.

The disgust remained, but something more complex had inexplicably appeared in his eyes.

For the first time, I truly realized that this bastard might actually be able to stir up this stagnant pool and create a way out.

Lu Jing planted his saber in the ground, stretched, and yawned widely.

Don't get too excited yet.

He turned his head and looked at Shen Qingqiu, who was slumped on the ground, and Ji Ruxue, whose expression was uncertain, in the corner.

"This is just halftime. That old snake Gu, if you hit him where it hurts, he'll definitely bite back even harder."

Just then.

Outside the gate of the Eighth Battalion, heavily armored infantry parted to create a passage.

A middle-aged man in a blue official robe walked slowly towards them.

Wearing a square scarf on her head and pink-soled official boots on her feet, she held an exquisite huanghuali wood box in her hands.

Behind him followed four burly guards with swords, each with bulging temples and sharp eyes.

Compared to the soldiers' camp, which reeked of excrement, urine, and blood, these five men were ridiculously clean.

As soon as the middle-aged civil official stepped into the camp gate, he immediately covered his mouth and nose with a silk handkerchief embroidered with orchids.

"This filthy place is an insult to civilization."

He disdainfully lifted the corner of his robe, carefully avoiding a pool of frozen black blood on the ground, afraid of soiling his brand-new official boots.

Lu Jing looked up and glanced at him.

This old fellow is fair-skinned and clean-cut; he looks like a naive kid who's never been through the wringer.

Gu Changfeng sent this thing, clearly intending to use diplomacy first and then resort to force.

"stop."

Lu Jing tapped the wooden stake beneath him with his military dagger: "Take one more step forward, and you'll be stepping on my brother's intestines."

The civil official trembled with fright and abruptly looked down at his feet.

Apart from a piece of tattered hemp rope that had been trampled on, there wasn't a single hair on the ground.

The soldiers who had been squatting by the wall, their eyes green with hunger, burst into suppressed laughter.

The civil official's face turned a deep shade of liver color. He put down his silk handkerchief and pointed at Lu Jing.

"You audacious madman! I am Xu Youcai, the chief clerk of the main general's camp, here to read out military orders on the orders of Staff Officer Gu! Why do you, a mere squad leader, not kneel before me?!"

Lu Jing leaned against the wooden stake, shifting to a more comfortable position.

"Xu, is that you? With a voice like that, you're wasting your talent selling miracle cures under the overpass. Coming here begging for food so early in the morning? We've licked the ashes off the pots of our Eighth Battalion, we have nothing to give you."

Xu Youcai was so angry that his lips trembled.

He had always acted with impunity in the main general's camp, so when had he ever been mocked like this by a soldier covered in mud?

"Lu Jing! Don't be so arrogant!"

Xu Youcai suppressed his anger, took a step forward, and raised the rosewood box in his hand high.

"Mr. Gu is a benevolent man who cherishes life. Remembering your merit in repelling the northern barbarians last night, he specially sent me to show you the right path!"

Lu Jing picked at his ear.

"Speak plainly. How much are you willing to pay for that piece of tattered paper I have?"

Xu Youcai gritted his teeth in anger.

This kid's bluntness completely disrupted his negotiation rhythm.

That torn page from the secret book brought out from the quartermaster's office was Gu Changfeng's Achilles' heel.

Gu Changfeng mobilized troops to surround the camp overnight, intending to wipe out the Eighth Battalion.

They were also afraid that Lu Jing might resort to desperate measures, destroying the torn pages or hiding them somewhere else.

The fear of harming the innocent led to today's negotiations.

Xu Youcai snorted coldly, opened the wooden box, and took out a scroll of documents covered with yellow silk.

"Lu Jing, receive the order!"

He deliberately focused his breath and amplified his voice to ensure that the hundreds of soldiers on the training ground, who were starving and dizzy, could hear him clearly.

"Upon investigation, Lu Jing, the third squad leader of the eighth battalion, was found to be a brave and valiant fighter who distinguished himself in killing a Northern Barbarian spy!"

"Lu Jing is hereby promoted to the rank of Hundred-Household Commander, Seventh Rank, in the Northern Xuan Army! He is awarded one thousand taels of silver and ten fine warhorses!"

"Effective immediately, Lu Jing and his entourage are to be transferred from the Eighth Battalion to the rear command's personal guard, receiving double pay and rations, and will no longer be required to fight on the front lines!"

After Xu Youcai finished reading, his gaze drifted towards the flagpole.

Zhao He had already been released and tied to a wooden stake.

He slammed the document shut and stared at Lu Jing with an arrogant expression.

"Commander Lu, as long as you hand over that 'thing you shouldn't have taken' and release Zhao He, this document bearing the commander's seal will take effect immediately. Gold, silver, official position, and your life are all in your hands!"

These words caused an uproar on the training ground.

The soldiers, who had been clinging to a sliver of hope, suddenly changed their expressions.

A seventh-rank official, holding the rank of centurion.

One thousand taels of silver.

Transferred from the front lines, with double the rations and pay.

For soldiers struggling in the mud and unable to even get a piece of moldy bread, this was an unimaginable windfall.

By simply handing over a piece of paper, one could go from being a cannon fodder with no future to a high-ranking officer wielding real power and living a life of luxury.

Who wouldn't be tempted?

Skinny Monkey huddled by the tent door behind Lu Jing, his calves starting to cramp wildly.

He clutched the tattered wooden shield in his hand, which was on the verge of falling apart.

"Oh no, Gu Changfeng is throwing a mountain of gold at someone's head!"

"Who wouldn't want to get promoted and make money? If Sergeant Lu leaves, and those three thousand heavily armored soldiers come in, we won't even be able to put our bodies back together."

Beneath the broken wall, the blind old soldier gripped a chipped machete, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

"These officials are utterly ruthless."

"They're risking their lives. If Sergeant Lu accepts that document, all of us will become stepping stones for him to climb the ladder."

Hundreds of eyes, filled with fear, suspicion, and despair, were fixed on Lu Jing.